An Engadget article notes that the Washington Post RIAA article we discussed earlier today may have been poorly phrased. The original article implied that the Association's suit stemmed from the music ripping. As it actually stands the defendant isn't being sued over CD ripping, but for placing files in a shared directory. Engadget notes that the difference here is that the RIAA is deliberately describing ripped MP3 backups as 'unauthorized copies' ... "something it's been doing quietly for a while, but now it looks like the gloves are off. While there's a pretty good argument for the legality of ripping under the market factor of fair use, it's never actually been ruled as such by a judge -- so paradoxically, the RIAA might be shooting itself in the foot here."
I'm not sure they're shooting anything. Ripping a CD *is* unauthorized by the copyright holder. Fortunately, copyright law does not require authorization for such things.
I'm not sure they're shooting anything. Ripping a CD *is* unauthorized by the copyright holder. Fortunately, copyright law does not require authorization for such things.
A very good point. Normal backing-up is permitted under "fair use". However, if the directory holding all these "backups" is shared with millions over the Internet:
As it actually stands the defendant isn't being sued over CD ripping, but for placing files in a shared directory.
then it is no longer "fair use", and RIAA is right to come
A guy ripped a CD, which is unauthorized but legal for backup purposes according to fair use. However he put it in his shared directory, which is NOT backing up.
You're letting them get away with their "making available" argument and be able to level charges without any real evidence of a crime taking place.
Just because it is in a shared directory does not constitute actual sharing. It may just be there for display purposes, a way of showing people what he has, for braggadocio. Until someone tries to download it, no illegal copying takes place (unauthorized !(always)= illegal). And until someone tries, you can't know whether anyone could actually succeed.
That's what made me groan about this article. It confirms that the RIAA isn't actually (necessarily) questioning the legality of ripping, but they are twisting the words and facts as any good lawyer would, to insinuate that there is something immoral about a defendant that rips CDs and takes "unauthorized" actions. I just hope that the jurors in any case where they use that BS implication would be smart enough to see through it, but I'm not optimistic.
Because the status quo is nothing more than a de facto presumption of legality. At such point as a judge rules that it is legal, that becomes legal precedent. The last thing they want is for format shifting to be ruled fair use, since they have made their living over the decades precisely through reselling the same content in different formats over and over again.
More to the point, format shifting at least currently is only presumed to be fair use when done by an individual. Depending on how a ruling on format shifting was worded, there's at least the potential that it might make it legal for someone to set up a commercial format shifting service that provides crystal clear digital copies of your worn out phonograph records without paying the RIAA, its members, the composer, artist, or publisher a dime. Nothing would scare a greedy, corrupt cartel like the RIAA more than the risk of format shifting becoming de jure legal in the more general case, as that would mean that they basically would have to make a living entirely by creating new music that is worth listening to, something which they haven't, IMHO, done successfully in a very long time.:-D
In other words, they've been milking the oldies for so long they can't imagine any other way to make money from music. What happens if I have an old VHS recording that I want to shift to a DVD... seems to me the same issues would apply. Hell, what if I have a book that I want to convert to an electronic format so I can shift it to my portable reader. The outcome of the RIAA's crusade will have effects well beyond music.
And why shouldn't we assume it's leagal? We've been recording tapes from pur LPs for decades, and that practice's legality was explicitly spelled out in the Home Recording Act of 1978.
I see no reason why rupping a CD to MP3 is any different than recording an LP to yape, and neither does anyone else who doesn't work for an RIAA label, or is stupid enough to believe their utter bullshit.
What? How are they shooting themselves in the foot?
Because people want fairness more than they want the letter of the law. To most of us, it seems fair that distributing copies to people in defiance of ownership type rights is unfair. Most juries (in the U. S. at least), would award damages for a case of someone distributing something they don't own the right to distribute. Many, probably most there would approve of criminal charges.
But juries usually want to be 'fair'. 'Fair' means that it's much more serious to sell copies for substantial profit than to pass them around for 'free'. 'Fair' means that off air recording is either not wrong, or it's a pretty trivial wrong. 'Fair' means they don't want a EULA to be the equivalent of a normal signed paper contract.
So when the recording industry starts claiming that their rights are being violated by people making legitimate backups, or not buying a second copy to use in the car, or using a VCR for space or time shifting, or lots of other thing, the recording industry starts looking like Darth Vader/Simon Legree/Satan, etc. They come off as anal-compulsive jerks trying to give basically honest people a hard time, rip off little old ladies, tie Nell Fenwick to the tracks, and probably eat live kittens on their days off.
And the jury is looking for any chance to do what's 'fair' to Baelzebub/Snydley Whiplash/Hannibal Lecter. So, they don't just reject the arguement that ripping is a violation of fair use, they look for excuses to reject the rest of the RIAA's claim as well. Any excuse.
If you want to prove that ripping a CD is fair use, you need to test it in court. It is the job of the courts to decide the fine details of law.
In the UK, it would be called Fair Dealing, and has never been tested in a Court of Law. Therefore the Authorities can assume it is illegal, giving the police powers of arrest for the cassettes in people's cars that they taped from CDs using equipment that they bought in good faith for that purpose. In practice, however, so many people are doing it that nobody
Comment I posted in a firehose [slashdot.org] story (which took all of 30 seconds to realize the summary was simplistic and wrong):
More Info
here [washingtonpost.com] and here [arstechnica.com]
Looks like the person in question was using Kazaa, which listed his mp3 files, although they weren't actually shared (uhh... does kazaa publish them if they're not shared?) Media Sentry found them (but didn't actually download them?). He represented himself and lost big time.
Misleading stories are no stranger to slashdot of course.
The amazing thing is that we actually have a new story to correct the old?! In nearly 10 years I don't think I've ever seen something so close to an actual retraction on slashdot!
As it actually stands the defendant isn't being sued over CD ripping, but for 'old-fashioned' song downloading.
Still wrong.
They sued him over uploading, or at least, having the files in question in his Kazaa shared folder.
Yes, they may have "taken the gloves off" regarding their terminology, but this case has the exact same
underlying "offense" as the thousands of other RIAA lawsuits we've heard about in the past few years.
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday December 30 2007, @03:43PM (#21858942)
These copies are unauthorized!
However, these copies are not illegal.
Under fair use, you are allowed to make copies for your personal use, and it is perfectly legal.
In this case, "unauthorized" is used in the sense of "Britney Spears Unauthorized Biography" instead of "Britney Spears Authorized Biography". Both are perfectly legal.
When "unauthorized" is automatically equated to "illegal" we have a problem in our society. Are we required to ask for authorization from someone to do everything now?
Maybe people on Slashdot have a problem when they equate "unauthorized" with "illegal" which they have done countless times in order to make the RIAA look bad. The RIAA is arguing in court filings that it does not "authorize" ripping of CD's.... which is 100% correct... it does NOT authorize you to rip from a CD. However, that is also completely meaningless as well. If I buy a car, the car maker does not "authorize" me to drive the car, paint the car, put gas in the car, etc. etc. etc. So what, authorization is completely irrelevant.
The RIAA is arguing in court filings that it does not "authorize" ripping of CD's.... which is 100% correct... it does NOT authorize you to rip from a CD. However, that is also completely meaningless as well.
So, the RIAA is allowed to make frivolous statements in court? I remember that the last time (in 1992) I had a conversation with someone at the IRS about my income tax, one of my arguments was rejected on the basis that it was "frivolous" (i.e. completely meaningless), and the person there told me that
Well, that's not quite right. There is no blanket "personal use" exception in fair use. Other countries have something like that, but it doesn't exist in the US. In the Betamax decision, for example, the Supreme Court differentiated between "time-shifting," which it ruled to be a fair use, and "library-building," which was not. Both are personal uses, but one is a fair use and one is not.
Also, look at Section 1008 of the Audio Home Recording Act, which immunizes certain home audio copying -- you can't imm
First off, you save your silly rant for someone else and for the right context. The article has to do with ripping CDs that you own for your own use, which the RIAA doesn't recognize as valid, but it falls squarely under Fair Use laws. It is not just my opinion that they are wrong on this issue. It is the clear law in the U.S., as confirmed by the courts in the Sony [wikipedia.org] case back in 1984.
Second, I've spent (rough ballpark guess) $15,000 over the past 25 years or so to amass my entirely legal music collection [zycha.com]
They may have read the article, but the article sucked. If you put any amount of thought into it, you would wonder how the RIAA would randomly pick someone and sue them for ripping CDs for personal use. A google later you'd find out that he was originally identified as a kazaa user, went to court without a lawyer, and lost.
I think, if a judge were ever to rule on the specific question of song ripping, it would be held as a fair use, extending the thinking in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia (which extended the Audio Home Recording Act to 'space shifting' a track -- copying it from a computer to a handheld, for instance. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=9th&navby=case&no=9856727 [findlaw.com]
Just because something has a fair use defense, however, does not mean it was authorized. In fact, asserting a fair use defense is a tacit acknowledgement that the copyright holder did not authorize the use, hence the need to rely on the fair use doctrine.
Finally, even if ripping tracks is a fair use (likely), putting them online for someone else (especially if that someone else is not within the sphere of your private household, going by the text of the AHRA and the legislative record behind it) to download is certainly unauthorized and (per every court that's looked at it, e.g., Napster, Grokster, Aimster, etc) not within the fair use doctrine.
What the RIAA said in their court filing was that copies that are ripped and placed in a shared folder are unauthorized copies. They did not say anything about copies that are ripped but not shared.
This is significant because fair use depends on the purpose of the copying. Copying to put on your portable player would be a totally different situation under a fair use analysis than copying to give away to strangers on the internet.
At least in this case, they aren't trying to argue that all ripping is illegal--just this defendant's ripping. (And in other cases, they have said that ripping for your portable player is OK).
I believe that there are similar considerations if a defense under the Audio Home Recording Act, rather than under fair use is considered. The nature of the defendant and the reason for ripping would be relevant as to whether that covers him.
If the judge doesn't go along with their argument, they'll have to shut up about ripping being unauthorized.
If they get mp3's from ripping ruled to be unauthorized usage, that will just drive another nail in the coffin of CD sales. Consumers will turn to digital download services and completely eschew physical media. Artists will see the dwindling usefulness of the record companies and go independent.
Either way, the RIAA member companies will lose out. It would be far better for them to compete in the new arena than to use litigation to drive their way of thinking down everyone's throat. If they continue to ignore the cluebat beating them over the head, they'll wind up in the same boat with other organizations that have tried a similar approach (*cough*SCO*cough*).
This is a business that seems to regard it's customers as the enemy. The way it's going, they will eventually start suing anyone just for buying their product.
Did the person copying them have authorization? No.
Fortunately for most of us you don't need authorization for fair use purposes as you have the right to make such copies (depends on the law where you are of course).
However if you are using them for purposes that aren't covered by fair use then the fact they are unauthorized is very relevant as your copying was not permitted by right.
The RIAA aren't being tricky here, they are stating the plain truth.
Here's an interesting quote from one of the legal briefs in the case:
"Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recording into the compressed.mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs" [Supplemental Brief [ilrweb.com], page 15, lines 16-18, emphasis added].
The phrasing that they used seems to indicate that the MP3 files were authorized until they were placed into the shared folder. Now, I'm not a lawyer, so it's possible that this means absolutely noth
Is this the same retread story that's been making the rounds for the last two weeks?
Short summary: Guy ripped CD and placed MP3 in P2P shared directory. RIAA sues him for "making available" an "unauthorized copy". Media ignores first part and reports that RIAA is suing the guy for simply ripping a CD (how would they know if that's all he did?). Frenzied and completely incorrect stories are reported and posted to slashdot, with hundreds of comments posted by people who can't (or choose not to) read and correctly comprehend the actual events.
Will somebody please put a bullet in this undead zombie beast of a story? It seems to be submitted every day and the summary is damn near always wrong.
The rips in the brief are unauthorized because they have been placed in the share directory. Here's how it breaks down:
A CD ripped to your hard drive for personal use: OK.
A CD ripped to your hard drive and then copied into your Kazaa share directory: unauthorized.
Thus, the very same ripped MP3 file can go from "authorized" to "unauthorized" just through the act of making it available for sharing. "Personal use" is the big deal here, and I think everybody will still continue to argue over what "person
I'm normally not a paranoid cynic, but I'm actually quite bothered that the RIAA can try to dictate how I organize the files on my personal computer. What I suspect they are doing, by wording it they way they did, is to create as much of an accusatory tone as they can without having to actually prove any illegal activity. It would be one thing to say, "User X seeded Song B to a bittorrent client", but then they'd actually have to prove that, or face libel/slander charges.
Am I the only person who finds it bitterly ironic that, when a correction about a misleading summary is *finally* posted to Slashdot, the misleading summary was actually in some other news source?
They ARE unauthorized copies. There really has NEVER been any debate about that. The label didn't specifically authorize them therefore they are unauthorized. ITS THAT SIMPLE.
That said, the ENTIRE POINT of fair use is to legalize 'unauthorized copies' in limited 'fair use' circumstances. Fair use, by definition, operates on unauthorized copies. You have to make an unauthorized copy in order for fair use to apply. If the copy was authorized you wouldn't need fair use -- because you've got explicit authorization directly from the rights holder.
The RIAA calling these cd rips unauthorized is about as salient as when they 'over' identify the defendant... if they mention that Jane Doe is a 35 year old woman who works as a bookkeeper, they are not suggesting that being 35 years old, a woman, or a bookkeeper are issues in the case, they are merely identifying the defendant.
Similiarly identifying the unauthorized songs ripped from CD by the defendant merely identifies the songs in question. The fact that they are 'unauthorized' vs 'authorized' is as irrelevant as the fact they were ripped from CD instead of Sirius/XM-Radio.
The judge certainly knows this. The lawyers certainly all know this. Maybe the defendant isn't aware, but that's why he should have a lawyer.
Knee-jerk reactions by bloggers who seize on irrelevant facts without knowing or understanding how copyright works is the real issue here. I propose we have another front page article... "prominent journalists and bloggers somehow don't know making a copy without explicit authorization results in an unauthorized copy, DUH!"
I am "unauthorized" to walk around town or drink my coffee. Nobody, certainly not the RIAA, has granted me any permission to do so. However, I also require no authorization.
This is the important thing to learn here: when someone says you have no permission to do something, ask yourself whether any permission is needed. You need nobody's permission to exercise your rights. As soon as you accept the lie that you do, you're lost.
Of course ripping is not an authorized copy, but it's not illegal. It doesn't have to be authorized by the RIAA to be legal. It's legal because of fair use.
Users aren't going to give fuck whether they are "authorized" to rip CDs or not, or even if it is fair use -- they are simply going to do it. The only thing that will stop them would be DRM, and DRM on CDs is pretty much ineffective anyway.
The following has been removed from the RIAA's website, but the Internet Archive remembers [archive.org]:
If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail.
> Engadget notes that the difference here is that the RIAA is deliberately describing > ripped MP3 backups as 'unauthorized copies'...
They are 'unauthorized copies'. So are copies made under fair use. Unauthorized is not a synonym for illegal. It just means that you don't have the copyright owner's permission. However, there are many things you can legally do with a copy without the copyright owner's permission.
> While there's a pretty good argument for the legality of ripping under the market > factor of fair use,...
You mean under the Audio Home Recording Act exception. "Fair use" is something else entirely (it is, though, an example of something you can legally do without the copyright owner's permission).
If the RIAA can get people to think rips are "unathorized" copies they will be able to disregard fair play soon.
"Fair use" I think you mean. They'll have a hard time convincing consumers that it is morally wrong to rip their discs: ripping is a pretty entrenched idea now. People like me that started out on vinyl "ripping" to reel-to-reel will never accept there's a damned thing wrong with that. The only hope they have is getting another rewrite of copyright law pushed through Congress, which is far more likely.
More and more, I see the RIAA as a major league loose cannon, with repercussions for the studios that I have to believe they haven't fully considered. I know the studios are just biding their time, waiting to see just how much the RIAA can win for them in terms of legal precedent, copyright modifications, and alterations in public attitude towards copyright infringement. Still, I can't help but think this is going to be self-defeating in the long run. I haven't bought any big studio music in twenty five years, and I don't plan to start. They've already lost me as customer, permanently. If they keep going the way they're going (lawsuits, threats and intimidation, high prices, poor quality) they're going to lose more.
Maybe, but Fox claims to be a professional news organization. Slashdot doesn't, and in fact just takes stories from anybody... no real journalism involved. Slashdot is also pretty open about that, and doesn't claim to be anything other than what it is. Really, you should be criticizing Fox for being down at Slashdot's level.
Fair use is often cited as a reason why people can supposedly do whatever they want with purchased media.
No, fair use is cited as the reason that people can do what they want with purchased media for their own use (the law actually has many other applications, but that's what is most relevant here.) Not too many people I know, and not many on Slashdot, believe that fair use implies a license to commit copyright infringement on a massive scale, because it doesn't. Whether or not you believe that Fair Use
Shooting in foot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shooting in foot (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A very good point. Normal backing-up is permitted under "fair use". However, if the directory holding all these "backups" is shared with millions over the Internet:
then it is no longer "fair use", and RIAA is right to come
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A guy ripped a CD, which is unauthorized but legal for backup purposes according to fair use. However he put it in his shared directory, which is NOT backing up.
You're letting them get away with their "making available" argument and be able to level charges without any real evidence of a crime taking place.
Just because it is in a shared directory does not constitute actual sharing. It may just be there for display purposes, a way of showing people what he has, for braggadocio. Until someone tries to download it, no illegal copying takes place (unauthorized !(always)= illegal). And until someone tries, you can't know whether anyone could actually succeed.
And if su
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How are they shooting themselves in the foot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the status quo is nothing more than a de facto presumption of legality. At such point as a judge rules that it is legal, that becomes legal precedent. The last thing they want is for format shifting to be ruled fair use, since they have made their living over the decades precisely through reselling the same content in different formats over and over again.
More to the point, format shifting at least currently is only presumed to be fair use when done by an individual. Depending on how a ruling on format shifting was worded, there's at least the potential that it might make it legal for someone to set up a commercial format shifting service that provides crystal clear digital copies of your worn out phonograph records without paying the RIAA, its members, the composer, artist, or publisher a dime. Nothing would scare a greedy, corrupt cartel like the RIAA more than the risk of format shifting becoming de jure legal in the more general case, as that would mean that they basically would have to make a living entirely by creating new music that is worth listening to, something which they haven't, IMHO, done successfully in a very long time. :-D
Parent
Re:How are they shooting themselves in the foot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I see no reason why rupping a CD to MP3 is any different than recording an LP to yape, and neither does anyone else who doesn't work for an RIAA label, or is stupid enough to believe their utter bullshit.
-mcgrew
Re:How are they shooting themselves in the foot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because people want fairness more than they want the letter of the law. To most of us, it seems fair that distributing copies to people in defiance of ownership type rights is unfair. Most juries (in the U. S. at least), would award damages for a case of someone distributing something they don't own the right to distribute. Many, probably most there would approve of criminal charges.
But juries usually want to be 'fair'. 'Fair' means that it's much more serious to sell copies for substantial profit than to pass them around for 'free'. 'Fair' means that off air recording is either not wrong, or it's a pretty trivial wrong. 'Fair' means they don't want a EULA to be the equivalent of a normal signed paper contract.
So when the recording industry starts claiming that their rights are being violated by people making legitimate backups, or not buying a second copy to use in the car, or using a VCR for space or time shifting, or lots of other thing, the recording industry starts looking like Darth Vader/Simon Legree/Satan, etc. They come off as anal-compulsive jerks trying to give basically honest people a hard time, rip off little old ladies, tie Nell Fenwick to the tracks, and probably eat live kittens on their days off.
And the jury is looking for any chance to do what's 'fair' to Baelzebub/Snydley Whiplash/Hannibal Lecter. So, they don't just reject the arguement that ripping is a violation of fair use, they look for excuses to reject the rest of the RIAA's claim as well. Any excuse.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In the UK, it would be called Fair Dealing, and has never been tested in a Court of Law. Therefore the Authorities can assume it is illegal, giving the police powers of arrest for the cassettes in people's cars that they taped from CDs using equipment that they bought in good faith for that purpose. In practice, however, so many people are doing it that nobody
Hooray for Flip-Flopping! (Score:2, Informative)
imagine that (Score:5, Informative)
Comment I posted in a firehose [slashdot.org] story (which took all of 30 seconds to realize the summary was simplistic and wrong):
More Info
here [washingtonpost.com] and here [arstechnica.com]
Looks like the person in question was using Kazaa, which listed his mp3 files, although they weren't actually shared (uhh ... does kazaa publish them if they're not shared?) Media Sentry found them (but didn't actually download them?). He represented himself and lost big time.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The amazing thing is that we actually have a new story to correct the old?! In nearly 10 years I don't think I've ever seen something so close to an actual retraction on slashdot!
Nope, try again... (Score:5, Informative)
Still wrong.
They sued him over uploading, or at least, having the files in question in his Kazaa shared folder.
Yes, they may have "taken the gloves off" regarding their terminology, but this case has the exact same underlying "offense" as the thousands of other RIAA lawsuits we've heard about in the past few years.
The RIAA is correct for once! (Score:5, Interesting)
However, these copies are not illegal.
Under fair use, you are allowed to make copies for your personal use, and it is perfectly legal.
In this case, "unauthorized" is used in the sense of "Britney Spears Unauthorized Biography" instead of "Britney Spears Authorized Biography". Both are perfectly legal.
A sad sign of the times... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
No. That comes later.
Re:A sad sign of the times... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, the RIAA is allowed to make frivolous statements in court? I remember that the last time (in 1992) I had a conversation with someone at the IRS about my income tax, one of my arguments was rejected on the basis that it was "frivolous" (i.e. completely meaningless), and the person there told me that
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In the Betamax decision, for example, the Supreme Court differentiated between "time-shifting," which it ruled to be a fair use, and "library-building," which was not. Both are personal uses, but one is a fair use and one is not.
Also, look at Section 1008 of the Audio Home Recording Act, which immunizes certain home audio copying -- you can't imm
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, I've spent (rough ballpark guess) $15,000 over the past 25 years or so to amass my entirely legal music collection [zycha.com]
What? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Of course it's unauthorized (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, technically they *are* unauthorized (Score:5, Informative)
Just because something has a fair use defense, however, does not mean it was authorized. In fact, asserting a fair use defense is a tacit acknowledgement that the copyright holder did not authorize the use, hence the need to rely on the fair use doctrine.
Finally, even if ripping tracks is a fair use (likely), putting them online for someone else (especially if that someone else is not within the sphere of your private household, going by the text of the AHRA and the legislative record behind it) to download is certainly unauthorized and (per every court that's looked at it, e.g., Napster, Grokster, Aimster, etc) not within the fair use doctrine.
Still not accurate (Score:5, Informative)
This is significant because fair use depends on the purpose of the copying. Copying to put on your portable player would be a totally different situation under a fair use analysis than copying to give away to strangers on the internet.
At least in this case, they aren't trying to argue that all ripping is illegal--just this defendant's ripping. (And in other cases, they have said that ripping for your portable player is OK).
I believe that there are similar considerations if a defense under the Audio Home Recording Act, rather than under fair use is considered. The nature of the defendant and the reason for ripping would be relevant as to whether that covers him.
It's going to burn them either way... (Score:3, Interesting)
If they get mp3's from ripping ruled to be unauthorized usage, that will just drive another nail in the coffin of CD sales. Consumers will turn to digital download services and completely eschew physical media. Artists will see the dwindling usefulness of the record companies and go independent.
Either way, the RIAA member companies will lose out. It would be far better for them to compete in the new arena than to use litigation to drive their way of thinking down everyone's throat. If they continue to ignore the cluebat beating them over the head, they'll wind up in the same boat with other organizations that have tried a similar approach (*cough*SCO*cough*).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They're right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately, you don't need their authorisation, so that's OK.
They are plainly unauthorized copies, no trickery (Score:5, Informative)
Fortunately for most of us you don't need authorization for fair use purposes as you have the right to make such copies (depends on the law where you are of course).
However if you are using them for purposes that aren't covered by fair use then the fact they are unauthorized is very relevant as your copying was not permitted by right.
The RIAA aren't being tricky here, they are stating the plain truth.
Re:They are plainly unauthorized copies, no tricke (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's an interesting quote from one of the legal briefs in the case:
The phrasing that they used seems to indicate that the MP3 files were authorized until they were placed into the shared folder. Now, I'm not a lawyer, so it's possible that this means absolutely noth
Zombie News? (Score:3, Informative)
Is this the same retread story that's been making the rounds for the last two weeks?
Short summary: Guy ripped CD and placed MP3 in P2P shared directory. RIAA sues him for "making available" an "unauthorized copy". Media ignores first part and reports that RIAA is suing the guy for simply ripping a CD (how would they know if that's all he did?). Frenzied and completely incorrect stories are reported and posted to slashdot, with hundreds of comments posted by people who can't (or choose not to) read and correctly comprehend the actual events.
Will somebody please put a bullet in this undead zombie beast of a story? It seems to be submitted every day and the summary is damn near always wrong.
Article still gets it wrong. (Score:2)
The rips in the brief are unauthorized because they have been placed in the share directory. Here's how it breaks down:
Thus, the very same ripped MP3 file can go from "authorized" to "unauthorized" just through the act of making it available for sharing. "Personal use" is the big deal here, and I think everybody will still continue to argue over what "person
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A CD ripped to your hard drive for personal use: OK.
What if (thru Windows File Sharing), my hard drive itself is shared?? What about Administrative (C$) shares than many are not aware of?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Irony (Score:2)
Actually, what the RIAA lawyers... (Score:2)
are doing is seeing if the judge is going to call them on the carpet for calling personal copying infringement.
The idea is that they want to establish a few things:
They -are- unauthorized. (Score:3, Insightful)
They ARE unauthorized copies. There really has NEVER been any debate about that. The label didn't specifically authorize them therefore they are unauthorized. ITS THAT SIMPLE.
That said, the ENTIRE POINT of fair use is to legalize 'unauthorized copies' in limited 'fair use' circumstances. Fair use, by definition, operates on unauthorized copies. You have to make an unauthorized copy in order for fair use to apply. If the copy was authorized you wouldn't need fair use -- because you've got explicit authorization directly from the rights holder.
The RIAA calling these cd rips unauthorized is about as salient as when they 'over' identify the defendant... if they mention that Jane Doe is a 35 year old woman who works as a bookkeeper, they are not suggesting that being 35 years old, a woman, or a bookkeeper are issues in the case, they are merely identifying the defendant.
Similiarly identifying the unauthorized songs ripped from CD by the defendant merely identifies the songs in question. The fact that they are 'unauthorized' vs 'authorized' is as irrelevant as the fact they were ripped from CD instead of Sirius/XM-Radio.
The judge certainly knows this. The lawyers certainly all know this. Maybe the defendant isn't aware, but that's why he should have a lawyer.
Knee-jerk reactions by bloggers who seize on irrelevant facts without knowing or understanding how copyright works is the real issue here. I propose we have another front page article... "prominent journalists and bloggers somehow don't know making a copy without explicit authorization results in an unauthorized copy, DUH!"
Certainly it's unauthorized ... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not lying (Score:2)
Users don't care if ripping is "unauthorized" (Score:2)
RIAA changed their tune (Score:4, Informative)
"Unauthorized" != "Illegal" (Score:3, Insightful)
> ripped MP3 backups as 'unauthorized copies'
They are 'unauthorized copies'. So are copies made under fair use. Unauthorized is not a synonym for illegal. It just means that you don't have the copyright owner's permission. However, there are many things you can legally do with a copy without the copyright owner's permission.
> While there's a pretty good argument for the legality of ripping under the market
> factor of fair use,...
You mean under the Audio Home Recording Act exception. "Fair use" is something else entirely (it is, though, an example of something you can legally do without the copyright owner's permission).
Re: (Score:2)
The problem wasn't the summary (of the previous /. article) - but the Washington Post article (referenced in the other /. post) - which was misleading.
Re:/. retraction? (Score:5, Informative)
"Fair use" I think you mean. They'll have a hard time convincing consumers that it is morally wrong to rip their discs: ripping is a pretty entrenched idea now. People like me that started out on vinyl "ripping" to reel-to-reel will never accept there's a damned thing wrong with that. The only hope they have is getting another rewrite of copyright law pushed through Congress, which is far more likely.
More and more, I see the RIAA as a major league loose cannon, with repercussions for the studios that I have to believe they haven't fully considered. I know the studios are just biding their time, waiting to see just how much the RIAA can win for them in terms of legal precedent, copyright modifications, and alterations in public attitude towards copyright infringement. Still, I can't help but think this is going to be self-defeating in the long run. I haven't bought any big studio music in twenty five years, and I don't plan to start. They've already lost me as customer, permanently. If they keep going the way they're going (lawsuits, threats and intimidation, high prices, poor quality) they're going to lose more.
Parent
Re:Because /. would lose it's sensationalist angle (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, fair use is cited as the reason that people can do what they want with purchased media for their own use (the law actually has many other applications, but that's what is most relevant here.) Not too many people I know, and not many on Slashdot, believe that fair use implies a license to commit copyright infringement on a massive scale, because it doesn't. Whether or not you believe that Fair Use